Work

[queerbychoice]

Ooh look, the one day per year where I'm allowed to add money to my retirement IRA has come around again! Only three decades left till I get to retire. Maybe I should make an advent calendar to count down the days . . . I'd just have to cut 10,950 little doors in sheets of construction paper and place 10,950 little cut-out surprise images behind the doors. Think of how much closer I'd be to retirement by the time I finished making the calendar! Oh wait, except I'm not going to have sufficient free time to waste on things like that until after I retire. And probably not then either, if I have the good sense to find better things to spend my time on.

Recently the owner of my company passed out envelopes contiaining the information about the total amount of money spent on us by the company - not just salary but also the cost of health care and other insurance benefits. He said he "wanted us to know," presumably so that we will feel more appreciative of what we're already getting and not dare to ask for more. I have decided to outwit this clever plot by just never opening the envelope. Ha, now I can go on feeling just as free to complain about my salary as before! Guilt-tripping me would work a lot better if they didn't inform me ahead of time that there's nothing in the envelope that I actually need to read.

Comments

[brienf.livejournal.com]

Passing out envelopes is lame. What you should do is compare each other's costs and see if you are being paid equitably - ie: he has better health insurance than me, or the company spends more on insurance for her kids than it does for my dog.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

That is precisely what they're carefully not doing. ;-)

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

You should ask whether the money they spent on these printouts and envelopes was included in the figure. Because that would make you much more appreciative.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

P.S. - Why are you only allowed to add money to your IRA one day a year? I'm confused.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

The federal government limits how much money you can put into an IRA because putting money into an IRA prevents you from being taxed on it (until you withdraw the money) and they want to limit how easy it is to avoid the taxes. In 2004, the maximum IRA annual contribution is $3,000 per person (and if you have multiple IRAs this is the maximum for all of them). This maximum has been legislated to increase to $4,000 in 2005-2007, $5,000 in 2008, and to adjust annually for inflation rounded off to the nearest $500 every year after that. Each year the anniversary date of opening my IRA comes around, I become eligible to add more money to it again, and the bank sends me notification that this is my chance to do so.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see what you're saying now. That makes much more sense.

[chisparoja.livejournal.com]

vaya, that day comes soon enough as it is and then you wish you were young enough to work again. don't rush it, it's bad karma. ;)